Study: Stress Destroying Sexual Relationships

Stress shuts down libido and may be devastating to a sexual relationship, according to a new study out of Britain.

Researchers at the pharmaceutical company, Novo Nordisk UK, and Relate, a team of relationship experts, studied 2,037 people and found that 50 percent of the participants reported that stress and other medical issues had negatively affected their sex lives. A loss of libido and discomfort during sex were reported as the two biggest problems.

The survey also found that women over the age of 55 said were more susceptible to sexual problems due to stress. Many women said they believed they had become less attractive to their partners as they aged. Less than half of the participants said that they didn’t discuss their sex lives with their partners.

“Sometimes it’s easiest to ignore sexually-related health problems than to address them,” said Dr. Annie Evans, a women’s health specialist at Nuffield Hospital in Bristol, England. “By ignoring physical symptoms, both men and women leave themselves at risk of the problems becoming more serious and less easy to put right."